Mr. Wing Healey has written a play based on the latest available research concerning the Greek myth of Atreus and his brother Thyestes, their struggle for power against each other, and the origin of the Curse on the House of Atreus.  Says Wing Healey, "Greek scholar Walter Burkert states that many of the great ancient playwrights, including Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles, wrote important trilogies on the subject.  All have been lost.  There is only one late Roman version by Seneca, thought to be a bad copy of the Euripides original known to have been celebrated in Antiquity.  I find it interesting that our view of the ancient world, and hence of our Western Heritage, has a gap, a missing note.  This is a story of political cheating.  The ur cheating story.  

We did a production of the play in North Hollywood in 2008.  For details and photos click on the image.

Enter Text

PLAYS

In this re-telling of the Alkestis of Euripides, the values are all reversed. Wires are crossed, emails fly, secrets are revealed, contracts broken, clocks are ticking and millions get spent on the road to finding out who will end up with the thirty-two billion dollars in the Bobberson estate when and if the older generation actually moves on.

On April 26, 2010 MOC in conjunction with T.W.E.E.D. director Kevin Maloney, presented a reading of Al and Kester at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.  In a small conference room we had about 40 people and did the whole play with a narrator.  The cast included Jon Southwell, Bridgette Campbell, John Rael, Michael Griffith, Dean Hepker, and Diane Lane.

TO UR

The scene opens in Gene Heaven,  Mother Gena enters.  She will be asked to explain the reason for Homosexuality by her worried assistans.  But first she  expounds her central theory:

MOTHER GENA:

      Reproduce!

     Go thee forth and

     Sprout and spawn.

     Since the dawn

     Of time I’ve drawn

     You each to each

     To mate

     Oh zygote.  Oh gamete.

     Blend!   And each time conjugate

     Your genes anew.

     I’ve thrown in traits

     And lusts and tastes,

     Colors, statures, eye-shapes, gaits.

     I’ve tried on wings and tails and toes,

     Opposable thumbs

     And the Roman nose.

     When this earthly coil

     Is shuffled off

     The double spiral

     Of the genome stuff

     Lives on in babes and pups and pods.

     It works.  Who knew?  

     What were the odds?

     The whole thing’s packed with

     Sperm and stamen

     So there’s room for error,

     But I must insist

     To the point of terror

     That to multiply

     Is a creature’s fate.

     I’ve little use for the reprobate.

     Allow me, then, to iterate

     To introduce

     As if t’were new

     The gist of what I expect from you  -

     Reproduce!  Reproduce!

TO UR

A GENETIC FAERIE

TALE